From Xujia Village to the town, including loading lanterns, the round trip by oxcart takes about half an hour. Xu Shun charges them fifteen coins for each trip.
If he could make six trips a day, wouldn't he be able to earn nearly a hundred coins?
You should know that when they go out to do hard labor, they can only earn a maximum of thirty or fifty coins a day, and with the help of the oxcart, it's only fifty or sixty coins.
With that in mind, the cattle herder readily agreed to deliver lanterns to Xu Shun until the Lantern Festival.
To avoid any accidents on the way, this family, father and son, were delivering lanterns to Xu Shun.
Zhou Xing, along with the ten people she had arranged the night before, began making lanterns in the south room of her house.
She was in charge of cutting the paper, and of the ten people, five were in charge of making the lantern frames, and the other five were in charge of applying the paper.
Meanwhile, the Xu family elders, along with Nannan and Dongdong, busied themselves helping them cook the paste, the whole family working together seamlessly.
The news spread throughout the village, and everyone praised Xu Shun for his ability, intelligence, and business acumen. They said that just from making lanterns these past few days, he would probably make a lot of money.
These words were overheard by Bai Shi and Yuan Shi, the wives of Xu Da and Xu Er, who were visiting neighbors.
The two men were bragging to the village women about how well their son was studying and how he had been praised by the teacher, when they overheard a woman saying that Xu Shun had hired about ten people from the village to help make lanterns at his house. In addition to the two people who were already working in his family, there were quite a few people to help!
Moreover, they heard that Xu Shun had hired an oxcart from the village to help his family carry lanterns these past few days. Bai and Yuan exchanged a glance, and their expressions changed.
You, Xu Laosan, you want to hire people and vehicles, but you'd rather let outsiders earn the money than hire your own family, is that it?
Unfortunately, that brainless young wife provoked the two of them with a few words, and their expressions immediately changed. They turned around and went home.
Last year, they lived a very comfortable life with the money they received from the division of the family property. Xu Da and Xu Er also went out to do some work to earn some money, which made Bai and Yuan very happy.
However, starting this year, their son was going to Yingzhou City to take the provincial examination. When they started taking out money in tael increments, they began to feel afraid. With their meager savings, if they didn't find a long-term way to make money, their money would dwindle day by day.
For both families, what they lost today wasn't the wages—they didn't care about that, it wasn't much money—but rather that Xu San had once again humiliated their families in front of the whole village.
He prefers to use outsiders rather than his own family. His own carriage has been empty these past few days; he should have called his family members along.
However, when the two of them went home and told their husbands, they didn't get into a fight. For Xu Da and Xu Er, it wasn't much money, so they didn't care. But Bai Shi was concerned about face.
Even though they had disagreements when they separated the family, Xu Shun and Zhou Xing would still greet them whenever they bumped into each other during the year. Wasn't that a sign that they had forgiven them and that they were still family?
But today's events made them realize that things might not be like that.
Xu Shun preferred to call outsiders rather than the two families.
Bai and Yuan had their own agendas. They had heard that Zhou Xing's sister-in-law was very good at business. In just one year, she had turned the Zhou family into a well-known wealthy family in town, buying shops and mansions. That was something that not just anyone could do.
The purpose of Bai and Yuan was to befriend Li Mai through Xu Shun and Zhou Xing, hoping she would guide them in doing business. They wanted to have some capital while they still had it, so they could have a daily income and not feel anxious.
Otherwise, if we just sit around and eat our savings away, we'll eventually run out of money.
However, today's events made them realize that their idea was probably impossible to realize, even though they had bought so many things for the old lady during the first month of the lunar year to visit the old couple for the New Year.
They knew that the things they sent over would definitely belong to the third brother's family, so they assumed that the third brother's family and they were once again as close as brothers.
But it wasn't.
Seeing that their husbands were unaware of the seriousness of the situation, they were both angry and helpless.
Zhou Xing was unaware that the Bai and Yuan families had once again harbored hatred towards her family; she had been busy making lanterns these past few days.
Zhou Lin knew that his brother-in-law was quite busy these days, so he and his apprentices spent more time helping him at the shop. When there was an immediate need, he and his apprentices would help him make lanterns in his workshop.
The next day, Li Mai heard that there were too many people ordering lanterns from her brother-in-law's workshop, so she simply transferred all the people she could spare from the town to help her brother-in-law at Zhou Lin's workshop.
Xu Shun was very grateful for his brothers-in-law's help and boldly accepted any order.
Basically, I placed the order today, and I can take the lantern I ordered when I come the next day.
Several busy days passed, and Xu Shun had finished making all the orders received in the shop, let the customers pick up the lanterns, and received payment.
Upon taking stock, they realized they had earned over thirty taels of silver in just a few days.
He usually earns this much per month selling bamboo products.
Xu Shun was very happy. After returning home on the 14th, he settled accounts with the families who had worked for him over the past few days. The people were very happy; they had worked for his family for three days and earned two hundred coins, which made them very happy as well.
Xu Shun was very generous. He paid them 60 coins a day, and when it came time to settle the accounts, he gave each person an extra 20 coins, making it a total of 200 coins.
Xu's seventh uncle, who delivered the lantern to him in an oxcart, earned five hundred coins from Xu Shun.
He was really busy these past three days, constantly delivering goods to Xu Shun. When he went to see Xu Shun busy, he even helped deliver goods to customers a few times, and Xu Shuan paid him for those as well.
After receiving their money, the group told Xu Shun to contact them again if he needed help, and then left happily.
Xu Shun and Zhou Xing had also discussed it today. Tomorrow, they would take their two children and their parents to town to see the lanterns. The town would be very lively tomorrow.
When the two elders heard that Xu Shun was going to take them to see the lanterns the next day, they immediately sat up straight and perked up. "Third brother, your parents are so old, is it alright? Don't cause you any trouble."
"It's alright, Mother. Even if you can't walk too far, you can still stroll around the street in front of our shop and see what's going on," Zhou Xing comforted the two elders with a smile.
Hearing their daughter-in-law say the same thing, the two elders felt at ease. Before going to bed that night, they prepared the new clothes they would wear the next day.
After Zhou Xing helped the children prepare their new clothes for going out the next day, the family washed up and went to bed early.
In the middle of the night, Xu Shun was suddenly startled by the smell of smoke that entered his nose, causing him to open his eyes and sit up abruptly.
Since his business and his goods are sensitive to fire, he is very sensitive to this smell.
Realizing he hadn't misheard, and that there was indeed a smell of smoke coming into the room, Xu Shuan quickly got dressed and ran outside.
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